Is there any possible way that people here on
Earth could live on other planets like Saturn,
Jupiter, or the Sun?

Question Date: 1999-06-03

Answer 1:

The planets and star you named are made of gases
so you couldn't actually live on them. You could
orbit them though but it would cost you a lot of
money and time to do that. Right now it isn't
worth it so instead we send out unmanned
spacecraft.

Answer 2:

To identify whether we could live in another
place, it is important to investigate the
conditions that humans are able to live
under.These include air to breathe, water, food,
gravity, and an appropriate temperature. Another
factor is the distance from Earth necessarily for
shipping supplies. Although humans are adaptable,
and have many technologies that might make these
conditions on other planets possible in controlled
buildings, it would be difficult to make sure all
of this would work for long periods. Each planet
poses its own problems to setting up a place where
humans might live. The moon is close by and
recent studies show that it may have ice that
could be used to provide a water supply. The
gravity of the moon is much less than on the Earth
but it is very close, making supplying it with
food easier. The moon is also too small to have
any sort of atmosphere so oxygen would have to
provided from Earth or some technology for easily
recycling air would have to be developed. Many
people think that Mars would be a good place for
people to live. Given the conditions necessary
that I described above, why do you think this
would be the case? Planets such as Jupiter and
Saturn pose different problems because the solid
surface is thousands of miles below the surface of
the clouds and the gravity and pressure there
would be an impossible place to live. The huge
atmospheric storms would also provide difficult
conditions. Some people think the moons of these
planets might be a reasonable place for life to
form but the problems of no air, low gravity,
distance from Earth, and much less solar energy
availability because of the distance from the sun
make the idea of living so far out in the solar
system unlikely. Living at the Sun itself would
be very difficult because of the tremendous heat,
not to mention the difficulty of getting between
the Earth and Sun because of the Sun's
gravity.